


Doctor Strange, M.D., Ph.D.

by Laily



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Intersex Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29821968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laily/pseuds/Laily
Summary: It's not that the Odinsons could not afford his billables, it's just that Doctor Stephen Strange never signed up for the position. Being Loki of Asgard's personal doctor should come with perks...shouldn't it?
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 24
Kudos: 68





	Doctor Strange, M.D., Ph.D.

It started with a busted knee. 

To be specific, Loki’s knee. The knee no one in their right mind would attempt to walk on lest they lurch to the ground with every step, but as far as his public image was concerned, accepting a helping hand, even if said hand belonged to his own brother, was unacceptable.

Technically Stephen was not responsible for the Avengers’ post-battle ouchies and grouchies, they had their own doctors for that, but the Sorcerer Supreme grew tired of watching Loki drag his useless leg behind him as they did a last sweep of the evacuated city that now lay in ruins. Despite their gargantuan size, Groggs were sneaky monsters; not only did they possess superhuman strength, they could also fly and breathe fire, something poor Loki had not prepared himself for. 

Hence, the busted knee. 

“Odinson,” he growled. 

Both brothers turned. 

“You, sit down,” he ordered. “Thor, hold him down.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Loki’s hiss dwindled to a low growl as he tried to shift the tarp-like heaviness of his brother's cape out of his face, “Thor!” - who was only too happy to force him to sit on the ground and fix him in place by means of two giant hands clamped to his shoulders. 

Seemingly immune to the pure wrath of Loki’s gaze, the former doctor coolly removed not one, not two, but three small knives hidden in the intricate lacings of his boot strap (how the hell did this charlatan know Loki had that many sharp objects on his person?) but Loki could not help his grunt of discomfort once his lower leg came into full view upon removal of his boot.

“That’s not where your kneecap’s supposed to be,” Thor moaned at the sight of his brother's deformed and grossly swollen knee.

Wordlessly, Stephen straightened Loki’s leg carefully while applying firm pressure to the displaced kneecap to push it back into place with a resounding pop that had Loki gasping from the shock and sharp burst of pain.

Loki watched him with unreadable eyes, the line of his mouth stubborn. “I see the concept of consent is not a doctrine you prescribe to.”

“I can just as easily dislocate it again if you like?” Stephen asked sweetly.

Go ahead, Loki dared him silently. It was an impressive feat, how one could convey such hatred, such grudging acknowledgment of his simultaneous need for help and dignity in one simple gaze.

“Just a simple case of patellar subluxation,” Stephen muttered. “It isn’t worth the paparazzis taking pictures of you hobbling, is it?”

A roll of bandage appeared out of thin air, and with a practiced hand, Stephen wrapped the pressure bandage around Loki’s knee tightly. “Try and keep your weight off the leg, at least for the next few days if not a week. I’m sure you can avail yourself to a crutch - ”

“A crutch?”

“- or a cane, if that is more your aesthetic."

“A _cane?_ ”

Stephen swept to his feet, burgundy cloak spinning around under him.

“He’s quite repetitive, isn’t he?” He asked Thor lightly, totally unconcerned. “You sure he didn’t hit his head?” 

Thor laughed and hoisted Loki to his feet, strong-arming his injured brother into submission by hauling him by the waist. “Lean on me, Brother.”

Who knew why Loki chose not to heal himself by magic but Stephen was not about to ruin his good reputation by turning a blind eye to anyone's suffering, present company included.

There was no point waiting around for a thank you (Stephen doubted he would live long enough to ever hear the phrase pass the God of Mischief's lips) so he summoned a portal and went home, trusting the Quinjet to take the Asgardians back to...wherever they usually gathered for debriefing after a mission. He hoped the next time the Masters of the Mystic Arts were roped in to help battle hostiles from outer space, there could at least be free sandwiches. 

* * *

"This is becoming a habit," Stephen said dryly as he stepped back to allow the Odinson brothers into the Sanctum a few days later. He did not comment on Loki's very slight limp and the lack of a crutch. 

"His, not mine," Loki said through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at his towering brother. "I am perfectly content with waiting for this to heal on its own."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "Pulled many elbows before?"

Loki’s eyebrow mirrored the mocking gesture. "There's only one socket in my elbow the forearm could go, sooner or later surely it will snap into place if left to its own devices."

"Yeah, I don't think that's how it works…" Thor drawled.

"Yep, I'm afraid it's not that simple coz technically the elbow joint is formed by the articulation of three bones, the humerus, the radius and the...ulna…" At the identical glazed looks on his guests' faces, Stephen refrained from going into details, deciding he had a more pressing matter to pursue. "How did you manage to hurt yourself like this anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Thor asked, frowning and more than a little alarmed.

"Well, for starters, it's not a very common injury. Unless you're a toddler. Gosh, I might have to call child protective services," Stephen said lightly, but the implied meaning was not lost on either brother. 

"Friend Steve was telling us the story of how he once held down a helicopter using nothing but brute strength and _somebody_ here thought he could do the same," Thor said, glowering at said somebody.

Loki scoffed. "I could. I can. I did."

"I’m sure the others appreciated what you did, Brother. If the Kree battleship had gotten away, who knows where they would have taken the Skrull asylum seekers.”

Stephen blinked. “You held down a Kree battleship?” 

“What of it?” Loki said challengingly.

“And you didn’t think to let go even when you felt and heard your elbow snap, which I’m sure you did?” 

A dismissive sniff. “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”

Thor rolled his eyes, but the smile he hid looked nostalgic and a little sad. There must be a story behind it that Stephen did not know and was not in any hurry to know. For all his bravado, Loki was wearing an expression of pain as he cradled his arm to his chest, suddenly looking forlorn and every one of his thousand or so years.

Stephen sighed and waved three armchairs into existence. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

He straightened Loki's arm carefully, mindful of the wince cracking across the poker face. He applied the gentlest pressure on the radial head with his thumb, and that was enough to push the bone back into its rightful place with a satisfying click.

"All better, Your Highness?" Stephen asked. 

"It will have to do," Loki said with a haughty sigh. 

"You might need a scan just to be on the safe side, make sure you didn't tear any ligaments."

"That will not be necessary," Loki said breezily. He rose out of his chair, with his brother reluctantly following suit. 

Stephen took that as a sign and teleported them to the front door to show them out. "Have a think about paying me a retainer, you know, if I'm to be your personal physician from now on. A man’s gotta eat after all.”

Loki only sneered whereas Thor seemed keen to put in some serious thought into it, so it was to him Stephen next spoke. "My prices aren't astronomical."

"Fear not, Wizard. We shall trouble you no more. I will not take my eyes off my Brother." Thor tapped his glass eye and laughed at his own not-funny joke. "Well... _eye_. Coz I have just the one, see?"

Stephen shook his head and could not close the door fast enough behind them.

* * *

Obviously Thor's remaining eye was not enough to keep as close a tab on his precious brother as he liked, for their next encounter found Stephen with his arms wrapped around Loki’s torso, performing abdominal thrusts on a semi-conscious alien prince. 

To be fair to Thor, the dinner was a fairly jovial and laid back affair with plenty of aperitifs going around and an open bar courtesy of the ever-generous Tony Stark to celebrate his upcoming nuptials with the lovely Miss Virginia Potts, so the priority, unfortunately, was not on his brother whose fickle palate decided to forgo the enjoyment of savouring a Brussels sprout, choosing to swallow it whole instead. 

The seemingly innocent, roasted morsel had since gone down the wrong way and Stephen found his current predicament pale in comparison to what it could have been had he not stepped in. Thor had been ready to remove the offending obstruction currently dislodged in his brother’s windpipe by way of slitting Loki’s throat. 

Nevertheless, an emergency tracheostomy was not far from his mind as Loki’s face turned blue and his lanky body sagged in Stephen’s arms.

“Not on my watch, buddy!” With a laborious grunt, Stephen shoved a knee in between Loki’s buckling legs to take on more of the dead weight and for leverage as he drove his fists into the Asgardian’s belly as hard as he could.

If this last Heimlich did not work, they might have to think about slitting Loki’s throat for real.

An explosive gust of stale air expelled itself from Loki's lungs and a bloodied Brussels sprout spewed from his bluish lips, propelled by the sheer force of Stephen's desperate manoeuvre.

Amid the joyful cacophony of cheers and happy tears that followed, Stephen's sole attention was on the sounds of Loki gasping, each breath easier than the one before, and on the rise and fall of the lean yet muscular torso he was still holding, so frighteningly still only seconds ago. 

"This has gotta stop, Odinson," Stephen murmured into the back of Loki's head. The curls felt softer than the pictures would have him believe, more fragrant than he imagined.

* * *

Loki stopped coming. 

Wong even commented on Stephen's dour mood, as well as his new habit of standing by the windows and watching the people passing by on the sidewalk below.

"Are you waiting for someone?" His fellow Guardian would ask every time he caught Stephen staring out the window.

"Don't be ridiculous, Wong," was his go-to answer. It grew testier with each passing day that no one knocked on his door. 

Never in a million years did Stephen think he would miss the mundane task of removing a splinter from Loki's long, tapered fingers, or dropping olive oil into the prince's ear to kill whatever Midgardian insect that dared enter in his sleep so Stephen could remove it, notwithstanding his shaky hands.

In all his years carrying the mantle of the Sorcerer Supreme, he had not felt as close to his humanity as Loki had made him feel these last few weeks. Every chance encounter left him yearning, not for the life he had left behind long ago, but for the person responsible for evoking such bittersweet memories of a time when life was simpler.

Granted, each time Loki never verbally offered his consent, nor did Stephen ask for it. All it took was a simple tilt of the head, a hesitant hand tucking that unruly curly hair behind one ear, a soft yet demanding 'Could you please?' in that crisp, smooth voice...it was all the implied consent he needed, and now here he was, grasping at reflections in the glass. 

Pathetic, Stephen laughed inwardly at himself. He thumped his head against the window pane over and over. 

I need to go out, he thought. Leave this lonely life behind. Talk to someone. Talk to the deli guy, or that old lady who lives behind the dumpster. Anybody will do. 

No matter how hard he knocked his head on the glass, he could not get Loki's face out of his mind, nor rid his senses of Loki's scent, earthy and warm like the perfume of the finest sandalwood. 

"Are you alright, Doctor?" A voice startled him out of his reverie. 

Stephen turned around very slowly.

"That is a very archaic method of curing headaches," the figure in the dark commented further. "I would suggest something called Tylenol? My friend Bruce swears by it."

Stephen pursed his lips. He'd be damned if he were to let his feelings show, not when he'd been caught off-guard in his own home. He wished his heart could beat a little slower, a little softer, the poundings in his chest were sure to give him away -

"Anything I can help you with?"

The figure stepped out of the shadows. "I...seem to have hurt my ankle."

A few seconds later they were sitting opposite each other and scrutinising Loki's latest injury. Stephen tried not to read too much into the mechanism of it, lest he drove Loki away with his suspicions. Self-inflicted or not, a sprained ankle was easily fixed. 

If only there was a way to let Loki know that he needed not get hurt to get Stephen's attention.

"Looks like a minor sprain." If one cared to listen closely, one might detect an eagerness to Stephen's voice as he delivered his diagnosis. "You'll live."

"Yay," Loki said dryly.

Stephen busied himself with ripping open a new roll of compression bandage. 

Before he could stop himself, he murmured, "You stopped coming." 

"You told me to stop." 

Stephen raised his eyes but his gaze went no higher than the level of Loki's lips. They were warm and pink now. "Only after you scared me for real."

If he was stunned by the confession, Loki did not show it. 

Stephen took advantage of the silence to lift Loki's ankle off the Ottoman where it was resting and prop it on his thigh. 

"Easier to wrap your ankle like this," he mumbled. He must be blushing, that was the only explanation he could think of as to why his face suddenly felt so hot. 

"I'm all yours, Doctor," he heard Loki say and he hurriedly began wrapping the crepe bandage around Loki's midfoot first, before ascending up the joint in a figure of eight pattern. His hands shook more whenever he was nervous so he'd better hurry it up.

Loki on other hand wished Stephen would take his time. He let his foot slip off Stephen’s thigh.

“Oops,” Loki said simply. 

Stephen cleared his throat and gingerly picked Loki’s slim ankle off his groin, replacing it once more upon his knee. Something was stirring deep within him, something hot, something he did not want Loki to see but knew it was far too late to temper carnal desires with some semblance of professionalism.

"We need to see to that ankle, Loki," Stephen muttered, unaware that he had just committed the most cardinal mistake. 

"It's fixed," Loki said breathily, for he too could not believe his ears. 

After all this time, to finally hear his name uttered by this beautiful man with his sad, kind eyes...Loki was not about to waste another minute of Stephen's time on his ankle when they could be focusing on much more pleasurable parts of his body.

"What?" 

Ignoring Stephen's bemused expression, Loki healed his own ankle with a touch of healing seidr and launched himself out of his chair. He straddled Stephen's lap. He stroked the white-streaked hair. 

"What are you doing?" he heard Stephen ask dimly. 

"Paying my debt," Loki whispered and kissed Stephen on the mouth, lightly scratching the stubbled cheek with his nails. He liked the feel of rough facial hair under his skin.

Loki slipped his arm around Stephen's back and pulled him in, kissing Stephen's exposed throat.

"Kiss me," he commanded.

Stephen surged upward, his chest swelling against him as he began to return Loki's kisses, slow and awkward and fumbling.

If the good doctor was in need of incentive, Loki was more than happy to help. He parted Stephen's thighs with one hand, seeking the warmth between his legs. The passion in him flared instantly upon finding the prize he sought lengthening and hardening under his touch. 

"Oh, Doctor…" Loki whispered, mystified. He reached up to stroke Stephen's hair again, drawing it back from his forehead. Never had Stephen looked so vulnerable as he did now, his eyes half-lidded, his breaths heavy with surrender and want. He was the most beautiful thing Loki had ever seen.

"Stephen," the beautiful thing corrected. "Call me Stephen."

Loki's whole body caught fire for this was the affirmation he needed, that they were not just two beings clashing together in fleeting desires of the flesh. He bent to claim Stephen's mouth again but a sudden vertigo rippled through his sluggish limbs and he smelled the faint fragrance of fresh linen.

I'm in his bedroom, Loki realised through the fog. The damp nether hair of a male body pressed against his bare back and a thrill coursed through Loki's body at the realisation that they were both, frankly speaking, quite naked.

Stephen grasped Loki's hips from behind gently but Loki twisted around under him.

"I wish to look at you," he confessed, but Stephen must have misconstrued his meaning for he instantly frowned.

"I won't hurt you," Stephen promised.

But I want you to, Loki wanted to say. "I know you won't. But you have a choice."

The little frown on Stephen's face deepened. It was too adorable not to be kissed. 

Once he was done kissing Stephen's face to his heart's content, Loki whispered in Stephen's ear. "There's more than one secret place."

Stephen lifted his chest off Loki's torso and looked down at the smooth plane of Loki's belly where a fairly normal-looking cock lay half-aroused. He nudged it out of the way with his own hardened member and then he saw it...the other secret place, its rosy folds demure and pink in its soft veil of down.

At the sheer delight on Stephen's face, Loki relented. "You're allowed one question."

"Is this real?" Stephen teased the opening very carefully as if afraid of hurting Loki. "Is it functional?" 

Loki rolled his eyes. "It's not a cul-de-sac, if that's what you're asking."

At the bewildered look on Stephen's face, Loki could not help but growl. "Yes, it's functional! Now will you stop finkydiddling and just fuck me?"

"Sorry, it's just - " Stephen laughed, "God, you're so _tight."_ He tried again, and this time the virgin passage gave way, and he felt Loki open, petal by fragile petal. 

Loki's snug little passage was slick and oh so warm, and Stephen could hold it back no longer; he rocked gently at first, but Loki's rhythm quickened, the grip on Stephen's thighs soon tightened, nails digging into mortal flesh and drawing blood.

Stephen slammed down harder and harder against this beautiful creature that could exist only in dreams, and the sweet, hot, tight envelope of flesh closed around him, eliciting a gasp from deep within him.

"Loki," he whispered. _"Loki."_

The blood rushed into Loki's face with pleasure, burning his cheeks scarlet against skin as white as porcelain. 

In the burnished light, Loki's ethereal beauty reminded Stephen of a fire burning in a hearth, a fire that was now burning him from the inside out, all-consuming and preternatural.

When the final moan came, the release was so complete, so perfectly finished yet so eternal that the euphoria was akin to a drunkenness that had no lucid intervals. It was a dull roaring in Stephen's ears, a shroud over his eyes. A haven of silence, an all-encompassing peace that washed over him, in spite of the chill on his sweat-dampened skin. 

A mist seemed to rise from the floor, diffusing into the tiniest nooks and crannies of the room like the silken weight of a fevered dream.

The mist cleared and green eyes as brilliant as sapphires glimmered in the darkness. "How's that for a retainer?"

"Astronomical," Stephen murmured in utter exhaustion. "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

"I don't know," Loki answered. "I did everything I could. I acquired bodily injuries at an incremental pace, nociceptively speaking."

"Please don't do that anymore," Stephen pleaded with a brush of his lips against Loki's temple. "Every time you get hurt, a little part of me dies." 

"Do you really mean that?" Loki asked in wonder.

"I do," Stephen said truthfully. "I was just too stupid to realise it." 

"Hmm." Loki hummed. "But the thing with the Brussels sprout, that wasn't me."

"I know."

"I'm not that crazy."

"I know, baby, I know."

"I'm crazy for you, though."

Stephen laughed. Loki was insatiable. "If you wanna go again, I'm gonna have to charge you double."

"You're on."

And that, ladies and gents and non-binary friends, was the story of how Doctor Stephen Strange, personal physician to Prince Loki of Asgard, got his promotion. And boy, did he deserve it. 

_FIN_

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm. Hello. Yes, this is my first attempt at writing smut. (Please be nice, thank you!)
> 
> I know I am behind on replying to comments left on other stories but know that I read and treasure every single one of them. I found myself in a dark place recently and I am still working to get myself out. Thank you for your enduring patience and support.


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